Slice (15 page)

‘I CAN’T BELIEVE
I’m doing this.’ Abbey Lee engaged first gear with a horrible scraping noise and crept back along the lane, using the moonlight instead of the car’s headlights to guide her between the garden walls of the adjoining houses and the steep ditch on the other side.

‘Lights!’ Fulton growled from the back seat as they joined the main road. ‘We can do without a ticket from some eagle-eyed woodentop.’

It was a clear night and, for once, there was not much traffic about – even the police seemed to have stayed indoors – and Abbey made good time to the hospital, pulling into the large lamplit car park and steering the big four-by-four into a bay partly hidden by the shadows of an overhanging beech tree.

‘You’d better stay here,’ Fulton said, struggling to extricate himself from the cramped space between the front and rear seats. ‘I won’t be long.’

Abbey snorted. ‘I’ll do nothing of the sort,’ she retorted and shivered as she glanced round the near empty car park. ‘I’m not staying here on my own.’

Fulton placed a heavy hand on her shoulder from over the back seat. ‘You’ll do as I tell you,’ he growled. ‘As yet, you have only given me a lift to the hospital. Go to the next stage and you’ll be totally compromised.’

She released her breath in an irritable hiss, reluctantly accepting the wisdom of his argument. ‘All right, all right, but don’t do anything stupid.’

He gave a faint smile. ‘Just keep your eyes open for the bogeyman, will you?

‘Very funny,’ she called after him. Slamming the door and applying  the internal locks, she sank down as low in the seat as she could, her eyes probing the car park for the slightest movement.

Fulton found the main reception area of the hospital deserted. Visiting hours had long since ended and the regular administrative staff had all gone home. The uniformed security officer slouched behind the reception counter seemed to be fast asleep and the big man shook his head with cynical amusement as he strode past him to the lift. So much for security, he mused, pressing the call button and slipping into the lift even as the doors slid silently open.

He knew exactly where he was going, having learned from Phil Gilham earlier that Derrringer was occupying a private room on the fourth level. Seconds later he stepped from the lift into a long vinyl-floored corridor with a large Exit sign at each end.

He was greeted by the strong smell of antiseptic and the sound of raucous coughing from somewhere to his left, but the corridor itself was deserted. Room Six was easy to spot; there was a plastic chair positioned to the left of the double doors, a thermos flask beneath it and a paperback book open on the seat. His eyes narrowed. So where was the policeman who should have been sitting outside?

Heart thumping, he gently pushed the doors open, took a few steps into the room, then abruptly froze.

John Derrringer had lost a lot of blood – in fact, most of his allocation by the look of it – and it had exited through the deep slash in this throat, plastering the bed, floor and the inside of the double doors in the same fashion as Lenny Baker, like paint from a spray gun. It was apparent that he was already dead: his wide open eyes stared fixedly at the ceiling, as if studying something of interest, while the blood continued to drip from the sheets on to the vinyl floor with a hollow ‘plopping’ sound.

‘Looks like it only just happened,’ Mickey Vansetti said, emerging from behind the right-hand door. ‘Must’ve missed the arsehole by a whisker.’

Fulton snapped out of his trance and stared at him, but his astonishment at finding him at the murder scene was abruptly cancelled out by a more immediate concern. ‘Stairs!’ he snarled. He wheeled round clumsily in the doorway and lumbered off along the corridor towards the nearest exit door, ignoring Vansetti’s shout: ‘Too late, Jack.’

He heard the ‘boom’ of a slammed door and the clatter of fast-descending feet at least two landings below him the moment he shouldered through the exit door, but even as he started down the staircase, he stopped short, hanging on to the banister rail and panting with the exertion. It was pointless. If that was the killer making good his escape, there was no way he would catch up with him – especially in his present physical state. Cupping his hands round his eyes to shut out the reflection from the fluorescent ceiling-light, he peered through the landing window and saw a shadow emerge from an invisible door at ground level and streak round the side of the building. It disappeared in the direction of the car park at the front.

‘He must have dived in somewhere when he heard the ping of my lift,’ Vansetti said at his elbow. ‘Weren’t no one in the corridor.’

Fulton leaned back against the wall, breathing heavily and studying him with predictable hostility. ‘Maybe there
was
no one else, Mickey,’ he grated. ‘Maybe there was just you.’

Vansetti shook his head, disappointment in his expression. ‘Come on, Jack, you know that’s cobblers. Why would I stiff him? He owed me a bundle and I come here to persuade him to tell me where he’d stashed it.’ He gave a dark smile. ‘Anyway, you knows me. Don’t need to do no heavy jobs meself. Got boys to do ’em for me.’

Fulton chose not to follow up on that one, though he realized deep down that his old antagonist was speaking the truth. ‘So where’s the bloody copper who should have been outside the door?’ he grated.

Vansetti grinned. ‘Last time I see him, he was comin’ out the lift as I got in an’ headin’ for the nurses’ rest room on the ground floor,’ he replied. ‘Had a packet of fags in his hand.’

‘The bastard,’ Fulton breathed and reached for his mobile phone.

Vansetti quickly grabbed his wrist. ‘What you doin’, Jack?’ he said. ‘Not callin’ up Ol’ Bill?’

‘What do
you
think?’

Vansetti shrugged and withdrew his hand. ‘So what’s goin’ to happen when you does that, eh? You’re already suspended and on sus’ for toppin’ your ol’ lady. You shouldn’t even be here. Officially you ain’t a copper no more.’

‘So?’

Vansetti sighed. ‘Jack, they’ll crucify you if they knows you been here. How you goin’ to get yourself off the hook stuck in a cell?’

Fulton hesitated, the cover of his mobile open and the cold display staring back at him.

‘Anyway, you’re too late,’ Vansetti murmured, holding the exit door open a fraction.

‘What?’ Fulton peered through the gap and saw a thickset uniformed bobby striding towards Derrringer’s room from the direction of the lift.

‘Let’s go, Jack, before the shit hits the fan.’

For a moment Fulton just stood there.

‘Jack!’ Vansetti breathed urgently. ‘Come on!’

‘Why should you give a toss?’

Vansetti pushed him towards the stairs. ‘Maybe ’cause I don’t like bent coppers no more than you do and your bleedin’ psycho is one of ’em.’

‘Yeah,’ Fulton agreed, reluctantly following him. ‘And by killing Derringer, he’s also scotched any chance you had of recovering your money.’

Vansetti threw open the door of the lower landing and grinned. ‘Psychos is always bad for business, Jack,’ he said.

The lights in the car park seemed brighter than before and for the first time Fulton glimpsed the big Mercedes projecting from behind a low hedge in a disabled bay. The powerful engine came to life the moment they appeared and without being summoned, the car eased smoothly out of the bay towards them, a big hunched shape behind the wheel. ‘Be in touch, Jack,’ Vansetti called as he threw open the rear passenger door and ducked inside. ‘Keep your head down.’

Fulton felt sick and giddy as he headed for the four-by-four on the opposite side of the car park. He couldn’t believe that he had just walked out on a serious crime scene without doing anything about it. OK, so John Derringer had not amounted to much – he was a completely rotten apple – but was Fulton himself any better? He should never have allowed himself to be persuaded by Vansetti’s bent logic to cut and run. At least he should have telephoned the incident room or Phil Gilham – or should he? What would that have achieved? Another nail in his coffin and an ace in the hole for Skellet. No, like it or not, he had to keep a low profile or risk losing any possible chance of clearing his name this side of a pensionless retirement.

First, though, he had to break the bad news to Abbey. He had selfishly dragged her into this business and after the latest horrific development, her position would be totally compromised and she would find herself inextricably bound up in his own continuing misfortune. He dreaded to think how she would react, but there was no easy way of saying what he had to say and he steeled himself for the inevitable heated confrontation as he threw open the front passenger door.

But there was no confrontation. Abbey was no longer in the car. He smelled the strong antiseptic smell first and saw the piece of paper lying on her seat as he bent inside. The message, written with what looked like lipstick in squat block capitals, was short and chilling in the car’s interior light:

Fulton passed a fleet of incoming police cars on the hospital’s service road as he eased the big four-by-four into the late-evening traffic flow. Obviously Derringer’s police guard had found his charge and he could well imagine the mayhem that must have broken out.

Borrowing Abbey’s Honda to get home was a risky move, but so was leaving it where it was. The police were bound to check the car park and do a registered owner check on any vehicle there. Then they would be asking where Abbey had gone and what she had been doing at the hospital in the first place. Furthermore, the only other way he could have made it home was by taxi and any good police investigator would check every taxi firm in town for hospital pick-ups as a matter of course.

The rationality of what he was doing didn’t ease his conscience, however. He had got Abbey into this thing and he felt as if he were now callously abandoning her to her fate, even though staying put would not have helped her in the slightest.

It had occurred to him to disregard the instructions in the note and contact Phil Gilham direct, reasoning that maybe their combined talents, coupled with the police resources at their disposal, would enable them to find her before it was too late. But then he had dismissed the idea as a total non-starter. He was no longer a member of the force and if he were to reveal Abbey’s kidnapping, he would have to admit to finding Derringer’s body as well, opening up a whole new can of worms. In addition, if the police investigation team had so far been incapable of catching the killer, there was not much chance of their finding Abbey. And if the man they were after was someone at the nick, as now seemed certain, their quarry would soon learn that Fulton had disobeyed his instructions, with disastrous consequences for Abbey.

He swung off the main drag and headed into the back streets to avoid falling foul of one of the police checkpoints which, he knew, would soon be set up. He had to admit to himself that he had never felt so helpless and alone. Dancing to a psycho’s tune was contrary to everything he had ever stood for and the very thought left a nasty taste in his mouth, but with no idea whatsoever as to the identity of his antagonist, what choice did he have? If only he could remember what had been bugging him for the last two days and why the spectre of Sweeney Todd loomed so large in his mind. What the hell was the connection between the demon barber and this sadistic serial killer? He was sure there was one, but his constipated mind still stubbornly refused to give it up, and the more he puzzled over the issue the deeper it sank into the quicksand of his subconscious.

He was still struggling with it as he climbed over the low wall into his back garden after parking the four-by-four in the lane where Abbey had picked him up, but the next second he had something more pressing to think about, for the telephone in his bungalow was ringing.

PHIL GILHAM STOOD
for a full minute in the doorway, staring at the bloodstained shell that had once been John Derringer. ‘Poor devil,’ he muttered. ‘He must have seen it coming and couldn’t do a damned thing about it.’

Ed Carrick, the Home Office pathologist, straightened up from his examination of the corpse and gave him a keen glance. ‘I doubt he saw it coming,’ he said. ‘At least, not until he was actually attacked. From the angle of the wound and the slightly contorted position of the body, I would say that this was done from the left side of the bed after a heavy blow to the forehead. See the bruising just starting to come out on top of his other injuries?’ He smiled grimly. ‘Your officer would have been stunned like a bull going to slaughter before the blade sliced through the artery.’

Gilham jumped, startled by the sudden flash of the SOCO photographer’s camera. ‘Maybe Derringer was asleep and woke up when the killer bent over him,’ he suggested. ‘Hence the blow to the head.’

‘More likely he knew him, guv,’ put in DS Prentice, who had materialized at his elbow and was now breathing a heady mixture of stale beer and cigarettes over him.

Gilham turned his head to study the sallow pockmarked face, surprised yet pleased to see the DS already at the scene. ‘You’re probably right,’ he agreed, ‘but whoever our man is, how the hell did he get past the plod stationed outside the door? I left strict instructions that no one was to be allowed in here, except duty medical staff.’

Prentice hesitated briefly before answering. ‘PC Leighton, the officer on security duty, says he went for a leak and when he got back—’

‘Give me strength!’ Gilham raised his eyes to the ceiling in disbelief. ‘You’re telling me he left his post for – for a
leak
?’

Prentice shrugged. ‘That’s what he told me, guv. Gone just a few minutes, he claimed.’

Gilham snorted. ‘More likely he went for a damned smoke. And hospital security? Were they all having a leak as well?’

Prentice shook his head. ‘Only one security officer on duty and he was downstairs in reception.’

‘Security cameras?’

‘None on site as yet. Hospital are currently doing a competitive tender for them. Should be installed next financial year.’

Gilham gave a short cynical laugh. ‘Brilliant!’ he said. ‘It’s encouraging to know the NHS is on the ball.’

Prentice made a face in sympathy. ‘Do you want to see PC Leighton now, guv? He’s downstairs in reception.’

Gilham took a deep breath. ‘No,’ he said grimly. ‘I’ll save that pleasure for later.’ He glanced along the corridor. ‘But I would like to know where my DI, Ben Morrison, has got to.’

Prentice shook his greasy black hair. ‘Dunno, guv,’ he said. ‘Control room have apparently been trying to raise him ever since you called up, but they’re getting no reply from his mobile or personal radio.’ He grinned. ‘Probably gone to bed early.’

Gilham’s bleak expression indicated that he didn’t think much of the joke. ‘Well, you can tell control they can send someone round to get him out of it,’ he snapped. ‘If I’m still up, I don’t see why he shouldn’t be.’

As Prentice headed off in the direction of the lift, the pathologist ducked under the blue-and-white security tape fixed across the doorway. ‘One of those nights, eh, Chief Inspector?’ he said, peeling off his surgical gloves. ‘You have an AWOL DI and I have an AWOL pathologist.’

Gilham followed him to the empty bedroom hospital security had placed at the disposal of the police. ‘Not your call tonight then, sir?’ he queried, watching the elderly man shake himself out of his protective suit.

‘Not at all,’ the other replied. ‘Should have been Abbey Lee, but she seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. No one can get hold of her.’ He smiled mischievously. ‘Probably having a sleep-over.’

‘Well, it wouldn’t be with Ben Morrison, that’s for sure,’ Gilham replied uncharitably, thinking of his gum-chewing leg man as he stared out of the window into the lamplit car park.

‘Ah, but who can tell what’s in a woman’s mind?’ Carrick countered.

‘Or in Ben Morrison’s,’ Gilham murmured, wondering exactly where the ex-marine had got to and why his absence made him feel so uneasy.

He was still lost in thought when Carrick shook him by the elbow. ‘They’re calling you,’ he said, nodding towards the corridor. ‘New development by the sound of it.’

Gilham almost collided with a uniformed bobby in the corridor. ‘Better come down, sir,’ he said, breathing heavily from an apparent sprint. ‘Search unit has come up with something. SOCO are already on their way downstairs.’

‘This better be worth it,’ Gilham threatened, following him to the lift.

The ground-floor fire exit stood wide open, the window smashed, and black masking tape still trailing from some of the jagged pieces of glass left in the frame. A concentration of torches directed at the shrubbery just outside revealed what looked like a white hospital coat rolled up and dumped among the bushes and even from where he stood, Gilham could see the coat was heavily soiled.

‘OK, so we know how he got in and away again,’ he said. ‘That’s something anyway.’

‘Bit more than that, guv,’ a uniformed woman sergeant put in, the triumph in her voice very pronounced. ‘That bush is a pyracantha, which has some pretty unforgiving thorns.’ She grabbed a flashlight from one of the other officers standing beside her. ‘Look you there.’

Gilham bent down to study the prickly branch arching out towards him in the powerful beam and his heart lurched when he saw the patch of discoloured leaves.

‘One of my sharp-eyed units spotted it,’ the sergeant went on. ‘Our man must have torn his hand open when he pushed the coat into the shrubbery.’ Her eyes seemed to shine in the light streaming out through the fire exit. ‘Your serial killer may have got away, but he made us a very nice present of his DNA.’

Fulton snatched up the phone in the hall and leaned against the wall with his other hand, breathing like a misfiring car engine. There was a clucking sound at the other end of the line.

‘Sorry, Jack,’ a metallic voice mocked. ‘Didn’t make you run, did I?’

Fulton couldn’t answer for a moment and when he did his voice was strained and unnatural. ‘Just cut the crap,’ he wheezed. ‘What is it you want?’

The caller sighed. ‘I’ve got the greatest respect for you, Jack – always have had – but you’re becoming a bit of a pain. Almost caught me tonight, so I decided I needed to buy some insurance.’

Fulton went into a fit of coughing. ‘You touch her, you bastard, and—’

‘Now, now, Jack, don’t go getting yourself all worked up. She’s quite safe,’ and the voice hardened, ‘but she’ll only stay that way if you keep your distance.’

Fulton held himself in check with an effort. After years of dealing with people like this, he knew that losing his cool would achieve nothing. If he wanted to help Abbey, he needed to stay calm and focused. ‘Why did you kill Derringer?’ he said quietly, using the tactic he had employed so often in the past to keep his target talking in the hope that he might let drop something that would help to identify him or his location.

Another sigh. ‘Had to, Jack. He was getting a bit too close to things.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Pretty shrewd cookie was our John. Always sniffing around, trying to get the dirt on people so he could make a few quid.’

‘You’re saying he was into blackmail?’

‘Oh I think that was coming my way eventually, but he wasn’t quite there. Then he fell foul of the Vansetti family and had to do a runner. Good of them to find him for me, wasn’t it? Gave me the opportunity of preventing any little indiscretions on his part.’

‘Indiscretions? How did you know that was on the cards?’

‘I didn’t, but when I heard on the nick’s bush telegraph that he had been found, I couldn’t afford to take the chance.’

The killer’s disclosure about the source of his information seemed like a bad slip at first and Fulton felt a thrill of satisfaction, but then the other chuckled. ‘Oh I’m not shy about confirming what you’ve always suspected, Jack – that I’m a copper – but the problem for you is that you don’t know
which
copper, do you?’

‘That shouldn’t take too long to find out.’

‘You reckon? OK, so how many bobbies do you think there are on this police area, eh? Force establishment figures say ninety-three. About a third of those are wopsies, but that still leaves a healthy sixty-two of the male gender – lot of suspects there for you to choose from.’

‘I’m gradually getting there.’

‘Oh, I know you are, Jack, and it will come to you before long. That’s why I needed an edge, just in case.’

‘And part of that edge was battering my wife to death, was it?’

‘Well, at the start I naïvely thought it would get you out of my hair, give me a bit of time. And she wasn’t a very nice lady, was she? As for her boyfriend – ugh! Insipid little shit, he was. You should be grateful to me for getting rid of the pair of them for you.’

‘I’ll come after you, you know that, don’t you?’

‘Quite sure you will, Jack, but once I’ve finished what I have to do, I won’t care anyway. Just need a little more time and then I’m all yours, so be patient.’

‘How do I know Abbey’s still alive?’

‘You don’t, but you’ll just have to accept a policeman’s word, won’t you? And she should feel completely at home where she is now anyway.’

‘Let me speak to her.’

The caller snorted. ‘Oh come on, Mr Superintendent, this is beginning to sound like one of those crime movies – you know, the good guy speaks to the hostage and she slips him the info about where she’s being held so he can rescue her. Get real, Jack.’

Fulton straightened up, his face taut and uncompromising. ‘Either I speak to her or it’s no deal.’

Another chuckle. ‘Do you know, Jack, I can practically hear that shrewd little mind of yours going into overdrive, trying to work out where I might be phoning from, listening for any telltale background noises or any giveaway comments. Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m using the mobile I nicked from Lyall, so I could be anywhere.’

‘I said I want to speak to Abbey.’

‘Patience, Jack, patience. Why don’t you give me a tinkle – say, at midnight, the old witching hour, eh? Maybe I’ll tell you a bit more about the little lady then – like the colour of her knickers, for instance.’

‘I want to speak to her now.’

The other ignored him. ‘See, if you had still been in charge of the inquiry, Jack, you could have had this call taped and traced or the conversation broken down by the tech services unit to try and identify my voice. But you’re no longer Mr Big Wheel, are you, so you can’t call the shots any more. Must be really hard to stomach. Still, we can talk about all this at twelve, can’t we? Don’t forget to ring me, will you?’

‘Either I speak to Abbey or I keep looking for you.’

There was a brief pause and the caller’s voice was heavy with menace. ‘Get anywhere near me, Jack, and I’ll use Abbey’s tools of the trade to give her open heart surgery. Got it?’ At which point the line went dead.

For a long time after the call Fulton sat slumped in his armchair in the lounge, communing with his whisky bottle and watching the hands of the mantelpiece clock tick inexorably towards midnight as he tried to mediate in the fierce struggle that was taking place between conscience and principles. In the end, however, he had to accept that he was stuffed and had no option but to go along with the killer’s demands – but that didn’t mean he couldn’t try a little subterfuge of his own.

At precisely 11.30 he picked up the lounge telephone and retrieved the details of the psycho’s call from the BT 1471 service. Then, tapping in the code to withhold his number, he carefully dialled Lyall’s mobile to see what would happen.

The telephone rang for several seconds before there was any response. Then to his surprise there was a click and a voice said cautiously: ‘Yeah, who’s that?’

He froze, his hand tightening on the receiver and his lips compressed into a thin hard line.

‘I said who’s calling?’

Very slowly he put the telephone back on its rest and stared at the wall, his brain numb with shock. He had not really expected anyone to answer the call half an hour early or, if they did, that he would be able to recognize the voice of the person at the other end of the line – and he had certainly not expected that that person would be Acting Superintendent Phil Gilham!